Thirteen years and counting
by roxygoth
Summary: After thirteen years locked up together with only three one-week breaks in between, it's no surprise that the sibs are starting to argue. However this argument is ridiculous, honestly, who argues over cereal?
1. Chapter 1

_**Hey! Roxy Goth here with a 2-shot for animaniacs! Hope you all enjoy. This takes place during the beginning of the 60 years the siblings were trapped in the water tower. Other fanfics writers write disagreements happening between the siblings once the show is over, but my thinking is surely they'd have worked through major annoyances during the time they were locked away with no likelihood of ever getting out? So with that in mind I wrote this.**_

 _ **This has been partly inspired from the 'I'm mad' segment.**_

 _ **I do not own animanics in any way shape or form.**_

"You've eaten all the cereal again!" Yakko was rudely awoken by the sound of his sisters voice.

"No I haven't! There's still some left." His brother sounded disinterested.

"Oh yeah? Where?"

"Have you tried the cupboard? You know, where they always are?"

A tut of annoyance from Dot, then a pause presumably while she inspected said cupboard. Then her voice came through again, whinier than ever. "There's only Daisy Loops left!"

"So…?"

"So you know I prefer Bugs Chocolate Bunnies!"

"For cryin' out loud, jus' have the Daisy Loops, Dot! Geez, it's not hard. Ralph's comin' by tomorrow anyway, so…"

"You said you'd leave some for me." His sister sounded hurt. Yakko was by now adjusted to the idea that it was now morning, 11:15 to be exact, and started trying to muster the energy to get out of bed.

"It's not my fault! I got hungry…"

"And you think I'm not? Ugh! Wakko you're so…stupid!"

By this time Yakko had got out of bed and was standing by the side of his bed rubbing his eyes. His jumped when the door flew open and Dot stormed in.

"Do not. Say. A word." She hissed pointing at her oldest brother.

"Wasn't going to."

Dot paused and looked at Yakko in a mix of annoyance and embarrassment. "Did we wake you?" She asked, taking her brothers clearly-just-got-out-of-bed look.

Yakko waved a hand airily. "It's fine. I'd have had to get up at some point."

"You must think we're idiots."

"Why?"

"Arguing over…" She sat down on her bed. "Over cereal." Dot gave a little laugh. "Who argues over cereal?"

"Anyone when they've been locked up for thirteen years." Yakko said, bluntly.

"How much longer till they clean the water tower?"

"Once every four year, they kindly cleaned it for us before we moved in, then again during the 4th, 8th and twelfth year so…two and a half years? I think, feel free to give or take."

Dot sighed. "Two and a half years. Great, so either me or Wakko are gonna be dead by that time."

"You've just gotta learn to get along."

"I don't know if I can, Yak. I'm not like you and Wakko, I get irritated when people insult me."

"I get irritated when people insult me, I just insult-slash-outwit them."

"Yeah, well you have a talent for that and also you use that for people who aren't family. Plus you're older. I'm 9, Wakko's 11 and your 13 and still ageing." Dot looked at her brother again. "How old do you reckon you're gonna get, Yakko?"

"Hopefully not much older." The oldest stretched a bit before carrying on. "I'd quite like to be some age between 14 and 16, I think. Anyway, enough about me. What was that about with Wakko, then?"

"Oh, nothing really."

"It must have been something, it woke me up!"

"In all fairness you're a light sleeper, it's Wakko who sleeps like the dead. And he snores like a train."

"But we love him anyway." Yakko said brightly, putting an arm around his sister and pulling her close.

"Yeah we do." A note of fondness crept into her voice.

"So…what happened?"

"Basically." Dot pulled away before turning to look Yakko in the eye. He made himself comfortable as well. He knew how Dot got when she went into rant mode. "I'd only been in the kitchen two minutes before we started arguing…actually I'll start at the beginning."

"Always the best place."

"Whatever. Anyway yesterday I noticed we were getting low on Bugs Chocolate Bunnies, you know, the ones I actually like."

"I prefer Daisy Loops."

"Only cause there's a picture of Daisy on it!"

"That has something to do with the reason, yes, I'll give you that."

"Anyway, I noticed this and said to Wakko, we're running out and he said 'Don't worry Ralph is coming by on Saturday to see if there's anything we need for the monthly shop, and then we'll have two more boxes.' So I said, okay then, fair enough, how about we only have a bit tomorrow, which is today, each and then we can finish the box Saturday morning when it doesn't matter because we're gonna have some fresh ones anyway, are you with me?"

"Yes, I'm following." Yakko said, sounding a bit distracted. However Dot knew by now that he was actually listening and very carefully indeed so she carried on.

"So today I go into the kitchen and Wakko's eating Bugs's cereal, which is fine because he was meant to have half some of it anyway. So I go over to the cupboard and what do you know? As well as eating his amount for tomorrow, he's eaten mine as well!" She sounded irritated. "So I started arguing with him and you know what happened after that."

"Y-es, I do."

Dot took a breath. "So what do you think?"

"Honestly?" Yakko said, making eye contact with her. She nodded. "Honestly I think your right, it is nothing really. Hmmm…However, Wakko seems to need to eat more than us, I think he has faster metabolism. He can't help it, you know that right?"

Dot nodded slowly, wondering where her brother was going with this.

She soon found out. "However, that doesn't excuse the fact he broke a promise, which I'm assuming is what you're actually upset about, right?"

"Yeah! He SAID-!"

"That he would leave some of Bug's cereal for you, I get it." Yakko said, rolling his eyes a bit. "Okay." He added seeing his sister looked less-than-impressed. "I'll go have a word with him. Knowing Wakko he just needs someone to explain the full picture to him." The oldest jumped of the bed. "You stay here and calm down a bit, read a book, listen to music, pretty yourself up or something, just calm down, okay?"

His sister nodded.

"Great, I'll be back soon. If you hear the sound of me being mashed by a mallet, feel free to come out and investigate." And with that he left the room to go and talk to his brother.


	2. A brotherly talk

**Hey! Thanks to Maria Paula 565 for favouring and following and to PFT3000 for reviewing. So with that done let's crack on, shall we?**

 **See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

As Yakko closed the door he heard music start up from there room. Clearly Dot had taken that option then.

As he wondered into the kitchen he saw Wakko standing at the sink washing up. "How's it going, bro?"

Wakko clicked his tongue before replying. "Ah, it's alright. Same as always I guess."

"Really? I suppose I'd better have some Daisy Loops then, seeing as they're the only ones left."

That got the reaction Yakko had been hoping for. Wakko sighed and put down the bowl. "You heard then?"

"Yeah, it was kinda hard to ignore, Wak."

"How bad?"

"Well…" Yakko leaned against the table. "Let's just put it this way, if we had neighbours they wouldn't be happy. They'd be banging on our door, in fact."

"Great. Just what I wanted to hear." Wakko paused before turning to face his brother. "I didn't want to argue with her ya know."

"No?"

"Of course not! She's my sister, I love her. I'd rather not spend every minute of every day arguing with her, but it just seems occasionally she'll blow up. Like today." The middle Warner turned to the sink and carried on washing up. "It's cereal. That's all it is, Ralph's comin' tomorrow. I don't get it. Why's it such a big deal if I eat some of Bug's cereal? She's not the only one who likes it!"

Yakko paused, mind quickly working for the best way to explain this to his younger brother. It wasn't that Wakko didn't care about them, it was just he sometimes had trouble working out exactly where they were coming from. Especially with Dot. Eventually he decided to just go for it.

"Dot told me her version of what happened."

"Oh yeah? What'd she say?" Wakko finished cleaning and turned back to face his older sibling.

"Shall we sit, dear brother?" They did so. Yakko leaned forward and began explaining. "Right from what I've got Dot pointed out that we're low on cereal, right?"

"Uh-huh." Wakko made circles on the wood with his finger.

"And you agreed and pointed out our good friend Ralph is coming by tomorrow. Agree so far?"

"Get to the point, Yakko." Wakko said, then seeing his brothers eyes narrow he hastily added. "Please?"

"That's better. Now, where was I? Oh yeah! So basically you two agreed to share the cereal, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"As a matter of fact, forget agreed, it's more like…promised." Yakko laid particular emapathis on promised.

"Yeah…we did." Wakko said, slowly.

"So when you came down this morning what did you do?"

"I had some of the cereal. All of it in fact…ah. I get it."

"You do?"

"I said I'd leave some for her…"

"Yeah…"

"And I didn't…."

"Uh-huh."

"So that's why she's annoyed? Because I didn't leave her any?" Wakko was 90 percent there but still looked a bit confused. So Yakko decided to spell it out for him before one of them died.

"After you promised you would, Wak. That's the issue here! You _promised_ to leave her some and you didn't, _that's_ what she's irritated about!"

"Not the cereal?"

"Forget the cereal!" Yakko took a breath. "The cereal represents a promise…" He looked at Wakko's face and decided to change tactics. "Right, let's come at it a different angle. Say I promised to take you out somewhere…"

"Oh that's nice, where?"

"It doesn't matter where…"

"Can we go to a theme park?" Wakko's eyes lit up.

"What? Maybe next time we're let outta this place…"

"Oh yay!" Wakko leapt up. "We're going to a theme park!"

"WAKKO!" Yakko yelled, banging his fist on the table. He took a deep breath. "Sit down and let me finish."

Wakko did so and the oldest Warner carried on. "Okay, so imagine we're going to a theme park…"

"Which theme park?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Okay."

"We've arranged it and then, the day before we go I break my arm." Yakko said, indicating towards the relevant body area.

Wakko immediately leaned across the table to grab his sibs arm. "Are you alright?"

Yakko pulled his arm away, frowning. "You're doing this deliberately now, aren't you?"

"Sorry. It was too good to resist!"

"Wakko…If you don't focus I'm gonna hit you over the head with a hammer. Hard. Okay, so take that scenario, what would your reaction be?"

The middle Warner leaned back in his chair and thought. Two minutes later he said. "I'd be disappointed, obviously, but it wouldn't be your fault. So I guess I wouldn't be mad, not really mad anyway. A little annoyed you'd broken your prom-oh!"

"You got it now?" The older Warner said, with just a hint of desperation.

"Yeah. Gee, I'm a idiot, aren't I?"

"No." Yakko said, with feeling. "You're not, your mind just doesn't operate on the same wavelength as everyone else."

"Thanks bro!" Wakko got up and slapped him brother on the back. "I'm going to go apologise to Dottie. Adios!"

"Adios." Yakko waved a hand then got up. "Right, now my big brother duty for the day is done, time for my breakfast." He said to himself.

Meanwhile Wakko stopped outside their shared room where rather loud music was coming from. "Here goes." He said to himself, adjusting his cap. He knocked.

The music stopped. "Yeah?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure." Wakko pushed the door open to see his sister lying on her bed, a magazine on her lap and a radio to the side of her. "Yeah?"

"Thanks for letting me in."

Dot raised an eyebrow. "It's your room to." She pointed out.

"Yeah, I know. Erm – Yakko, Yakko had a word with me." He shut the door.

Dot moved the magazine to the side. "And…?" She sounded hopeful.

"I've come to say I'm sorry I broke my promise. I shouldn't had done that, even if it is just cereal and not something as awesome as a theme park."

"What?"

"Never mind. Somethin' Yak said. So…we cool?" He held out his arms to her.

She leapt of the bed. "We're cool." She said, smiling. They hugged.


End file.
